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BTC gives an update on Brook Hill

It has been a while since there has been an update on the status of Brook Hill Golf Course.

During the Tuesday, Nov. 27 Brookville Town Council meeting, board member Curtis Ward gave an update including the price of the course which is around $1.1 million.

The seller is firm on the $1.1 million price. This includes land and personal property. The seller is requesting the $1.1 million with no appraisals and buying the course through redevelopment.

If the town decides that this is not the way they want to go, Dave White indicated the Dec. 8 auction is off, and the property would instead go to auction in spring where it would go to auction for half the property. It is unlikely the property would be a golf course if that is the route they choose to go.

“At this point we need to just to kind of think over the next few weeks and what (town attorney) Tammy (Davis) recommended is to go ahead and publicize that we're going to vote at the next meeting,” said Ward.

The town needs to decide if the seller is firm with that price or will accept a lower number, and whether or not the town will accept that number or wash their hands of the project. The seller does feel like they received an adequate appraisal at the beginning of the year and does not want anyone else telling them what their property is worth.

Currently all of the petitions circulating for annexation have stopped because the people who were the driving force behind the movement wanted to wait and see the numbers and decide if it was realistic before putting in all the effort.

BTC also discussed some ways to deal with Progress Street. Since the town did not receive funding to fix the hillside, alternatives were discussed on what to do until they receive funding. The solution proposed at the last BTC meeting was to close part of Progress Street until funding was received.

However, when they proposed this to FCN Bank, they were concerned as to how that would affect business for them. FCN Bank President Tom Horninger attended the meeting to discuss some of his concerns.

According to Horninger, they have a high number of transactions that occur in their drive thru, and they have the busiest ATM in the region. Horninger said the majority of their customers going north on Main Street travel around Progress Street and come out on Fifth Street, which would end up causing a mess on Main Street.

Horninger said he is concerned about closing Progress Street from a customer service standpoint.

“With Fourth Street light being the only point of egress, we can see it just being an absolute nightmare from a traffic and gridlock standpoint,” said Horninger.

Horninger did also say the bank realizes the issues in Progress Street and that it could be a potential liability issue, so they are willing to work with the town. Other options discussed were making Progress Street a one way to the north, and coming in at Fourth Street, circling around into the drive thru, circling back out onto Progress Street and back out. However, this could impact George's Pharmacy drive thru, so the town is going to reach out to him and get his opinion.

Town Administrator Tim Ripperger also brought up another potential problem in regards to the storm sewer line on Progress Street. The Valley House Project has hooked up to that line in the middle of the hill which is already sinking. Ripperger believes they had a conversation with Abercrombie and Associates, a civil engineering and survey company, about not hooking up to that line.

At the rate the line is currently moving, Ripperger said it will probably break before long. They are going to review tapes and see if not hooking up to that line was part of the building permit.

Ripperger also said he spoke to the OCRA liaison about the hillside, and he was told there is nothing new, and any grants they could apply for are 18 months out.